Monday, January 13, 2014

Essential Oils changed my life

I discovered Essential Oils by happenstance. I hadn't ever questioned my son's pediatrician when he had prescribed us four different medications for my son's respiratory problems. We had a routine every time he'd have difficulty breathing, which seemed like everyday.

Step 1: Every morning, he would get a dose of Zyrtec, allergy medication.
Step 2: Every night, he would get a dose of Singulair, a drug to keep his airways open.
Step 3: During a "flare-up", he would get Albuterol treatments via nebulizer, every 4-6 hours.
Step 4: In between, he would get 1/2 dose of children's Mucinex, to manage mucus build-up.
Step 5: Repeat.

As an infant, he seemed to always have a cold. But since he was unable to blow his nose, we would use that blue sucky-thing to remove as much of the mucus from his nostrils as possible. Oftentimes, the drainage would back up into his ears, and he would develop an ear infection. One time, it was a double-ear-infection. Trapping his arms, and stabilizing his head between my legs to suck out as much mucus as I could from his nose and throat was torture--for both of us! I can still hear the screams.

As a toddler, we tested him for allergies. I think he was two at the time. They placed a total of 40-or-so allergens on his skin to determine what had been causing his allergies. And the verdict was two types of mold spores, which were most commonly found on the leaves of trees and in the air. It was not as informative as I had expected, and provided no solution to the issues we had with his respiratory system.

The label "asthma" was often being used. I did discover that all asthma is allergy-related. It's not necessarily a pre-determined condition based on one's physical disposition.

Enter: Essential Oils. Our breakthrough. Our miracle.

My son had a severe allergic reaction on a Friday night/Saturday morning. We had skipped a morning dose of allergy medication, followed by a missed dose of Singular that night, and my son was having an extremely hard time breathing. He started to run a fever, and I was panicking trying to find an urgent-care, pediatric clinic, open on Saturdays. I had already given him a dose of Ibuprofen and a few Albuterol breathing treatments by the time we had seen the doctor.

So the conclusion was the same as it had been a hundred times before, "it's just allergies." We were told to keep doing the breathing treatments, Zyrtec, Singulair, PLUS give him Benedryl if we saw his eyes get puffy.

A friend of mine suggested doTERRA's Essential Oil blend called "Breathe," a respiratory blend consisting oflaurel leaf, peppermint, eucalyptus, tea tree, lemon and ravensara, along with Peppermint, for the fever. I don't think they "worked" right away for us. We had relied so heavily on the nebulizer and medications for so long, we felt like it would have been unsafe for us to abandon the current regimen for these oils. Over a period of about three weeks, I started to eliminate the night-time medication Singulair, and replaced it with "Breathe." He didn't seem to be having any problem with breathing, as long as I was putting the oils on him consistently. After about a week into the Singulair-elimination, I would also use the "Breathe" on his chest and back in the morning, in place of the Zyrtec. And it worked! We now only use his nebulizer occasionally, when he's having an extremely hard time catching wind, and have eliminated the Singulair, Zyrtec, and Mucinex completely! Besides that, we don't even have to use the Essential Oils every night and every morning.Essential Oils have changed our lives. Being able to find a natural, God-given solution to my son's respiratory issues has been a huge answer to prayer for me.